Return of the 'King'

While Beavis and Butt-Head, Office Space and maybe even Idiocracy may have had larger cultural footprints, there is no more seminal Mike Judge work than King of the Hill, which for 13 seasons followed The Simpsons on FOX and helped usher in what at one time was dubbed "Animation Domination," although Hank Hill and his crew have long since been usurped in the collective consciousness by The Family Guy as the preeminent non-Simpsons animated family.

KOTH was Judge's love letter to Texas and the American Southwest. (Actually his second love letter, as Beavis and Butt-Head was also based in Texas and the title characters' batty neighbor, Tom Anderson, was in many ways a proto-Hank Hill, down to the voice.) Raised in New Mexico and spending his early adulthood in Texas, Judge sanded the rough edges off Beavis and Butt-Head and spent time with quasi-responsible adults instead of dirt-stupid juvenile delinquents, inventing the Hill family and their social circle of friends and neighbors who inhabited blood-red Texas and found their principles strengthened or challenged on a weekly basis. Hank Hill may in fact be the most aspirational Republican to ever appear in fiction, not caring for any nonsense but always (eventually) able to keep a (mostly) open mind. In the 15 years since KOTH was canceled, the Republican party and much of America has, of course, lost its mind, and whenever the possibility of a King of the Hill reboot was floated, there was always deep trepidation about whether a loving depiction of a right-wing patriarch and his family could still have a place among its many, many left-wing fans.

King of the Hill returned to Hulu last week, and it's with great elation and relief that I report that all of those fears were unfounded. Many of the jabs at the idea of a KOTH reboot assumed that Hank would just be getting agita from "woke" America, but that is mostly used in the first episode of this 14th season (thankfully, there is no renumbering or true rebooting; this is very much Season 14, and it benefits from being Season 14) as a means to ease both the Hills and the viewers back into the warm embrace of Arlen, Texas – Hank and Peggy having just returned from a few years in Saudi Arabia, where Hank was overseeing a propane conversion project. (In one of the best running gags of Season 14, Peggy hilariously insists on pronouncing the country "Sow-die Arab-ee-eye," as she is now convinced she speaks a third language, in addition to Spanish, perfectly.)

Things are the same, but things are also different – Bobby is now an adult, although still voiced by Pamela Adlon, and he co-owns his own robatayaki restaurant in Dallas, where he is the chef. Boomhauer is now charged with the awkward pre-teen son of his girlfriend. Bill has, predictably, become a shut-in. And Dale, naturally – is still Dale, although in Hank's absence, Dale briefly became Arlen's mayor in a fluke. Some things, like Luanne, previously voiced by the late Brittany Murphy, are not addressed at all (probably for the best). Other things, like the understandably-recast Khan, take their time in being revealed. Johnny Hardwick, who passed away in 2023, voices some lines for Dale and is credited throughout the season, but the bulk of Dale's lines go to Khan's previous actor, the very talented Toby Huss, making for a strange mishmash that takes a slight bit of getting used to. But for the most part, this is the world and the characters we know, and much of the joy in this new season is getting to know them again, and getting to find out about where their lives have taken them all over the past 15 years.

To many, King of the Hill has always been a rerun show, something reliable to leave on the television after The Simpsons ends or when a local station or tertiary cable channel has some welcome afternoon, early-evening, or late-night fodder on offer. For others, though, King of the Hill is nearly a religion; a repository of philosopher wisdom Trojan Horsed inside a show steeped in Americana. We've been rewatching a good amount of the original run of the show, and it's always just been so, so good. If the show was nothing besides Mike Judge's line readings as Hank, it would be an all-timer. But it operated at a ridiculously high level of comedy and writing far beyond that for its entire run, and it's great to have it back at nearly the same level.

It's deeply unfortunate that Season 14 ends with one of the most colossal real-world comedowns possible: an in memoriam card for Jonathan Joss, the voice of John Redcorn, who was gunned down just two months ago in an overt hate crime. But in a sadly poetic way, this dose of reality is everything that makes King of the Hill as important as it was (is?): it presents to us a way the world could be, if we happen to love each other as much as we should, or at the very least seek to understand one another. But it also often shows the world as it is: unfeeling and unrelenting, but still full of people who strive to be better.

I'm so happy to have King of the Hill back. I'm glad that in spite of it all, there are still creators reminding us that no matter who we may be, striving to be better is still an option.